Keeps hair healthy, no residue, all natural. I’m praying and praying they’re going to restock their etsy shop! If they don’t I’m not sure what I’m going to do! Maybe cry a little?

Turbie Twist!!!

4. The Turbie Twist

Corny? Yes it is. But I love them. Great for after shower, or just to keep your hair up and off the back of your neck quickly and easily.

Magnetix Gold and Blue

5. Magnetix by Pretty Woman LLC in Gold…love the polish, not the magnet. Use another brand’s magnet, or trim down the one that came with it.

My list of disses…

Beautiful Brows

1. Beautiful Brows, Parmatown Mall.

I was very torn on whether or not I liked this place. I’ve decided not. While the hair removal was very fast and only slightly painful, the customer service was seriously lacking, and she didn’t get all the hairs. Brow Threading is supposed to be known for complete hair removal, even those teeny tiny little baby hairs. It’s why it’s becoming so popular.

Now, that being said…I am willing to give this place a try again and maybe I will have better results with another worker. The one I encountered didn’t want to be bothered and was seriously annoyed at the idea of having ONE customer. Seriously, the place was dead and had been dead all afternoon.

Magnetic Polishes

2. Claire’s Magnetix Polish in Silver and Gold.

I like the green!

I was very unimpressed with the results after using the magnet…and I know it’s not the power of the magnet, it works just fine on other polishes!!

Illegal Length Mascara

3. Maybelline’s Illegal Length Mascara

It flaked, it fell off, it made my head hurt, and my lashes were in no way running the risk of being arrested for too much length.

Alright…this would be the brand my student Hilary tried out, and at last I was able to track down myself a couple bottles at my local Rite Aide.

I picked up a Blue and a Gold.

Magnetix Gold and Blue

Alright, so above is what the package looks like. Cost was 6.99, so a little less then the Claire’s polish, and WAY less then Nails Inc.

Inside...

So opening it up…you get the bottle of polish, and two magnets inlaid in little gummy-rubber thingies. One is a wavy pattern, and the other is strait lines.

Now…here’s the thing…I tried out the magnets it came with, and the rubber part makes it REALLY hard to judge how close it is to your nail. Also, the curved magnet ends up pulling up large amounts of the metal creating blob-by blurs at the sides of your nails. It’s not pretty. They’re really hard to control, and like I said, you can’t see how far away from the nail the magnet is, so you can’t tell if you’re getting a good line.

I ended up popping one of the magnets out of the rubber part, and trying it that way. I did get better results, but there was still that curved magnet issues, and I kept getting the same blobs more often then not.

Soooo…I decided to try using the Claire’s magnet, because when I did manage to get a strait line, the effect was AWESOME. Switching over to the Claire’s magnet was a great idea. It was able to give me the control I needed, and it’s little flat surface didn’t make the yucky blobs. So…the swatched pics used the Claire’s Magnets.

Magnetix Pretty Woman Swatches

Here’s the swatches. The blue actually showed up after I used the Claire’s magnet. The Gold I just love. The metal comes through just great, and you can compare it to the Claire’s polish, which is just above it on my nail wheel. See the crazy huge difference?

Magnetix Pretty Woman Manicure

I didn’t clean it up before the picture…oh well. I was so excited I didn’t smudge anything and that it all came out pretty I took the picture right away!

Aside from the magnet, the only other sort of ech thing is that the Blue polish REALLY stains your nails like I’ve never seen. Use a VERY GOOD base coat, and be warned, because it might stain through that too. So just a heads up.

So in closing. I like the Magnetix Pretty Woman formula a ton. I dislike their magnets a great deal. If you’re interested in this brand, I suggest either buying the magnet from China Glaze (I’m sure a knock off is available somewhere by now), or popping the magnet out of the rubber thingy, and trimming it down….OR Go to Claire’s and buy the Green polish and use the magnet that it came with!!

I knew if I waited just a little while they’d be released with other brands, and of course, they were!

2 weeks ago my student (Hilary) showed me the polishes she had picked up at her local CVS, and that’s when I knew they were on the market. Thus my search for knock-off magnetic polish began!

Magnetic Polishes

It ended the same day at Claire’s, where I located 4 different colors! And yes, there are only three…the fourth burgundy polish went to my mother. So that left me with Teal/Green, Gold, and Silver. No names, no numbers. I’m told it also comes in Blue, but they were all out.

Apparently, there are different patters the little magnetic tops will give to your nails, however it seems the three I got are all lines…my mother’s is a wavy line, as you’ll see in the swatches.

Magnetic Polish Green and Gold

Here it is…on my nails…Honestly? I don’t care for the gold much. I think the magnetic effect would have been much more intense if they didn’t add the glitter into the polish. It really takes away from the lines. I DO like the Green very much. Sorry, no swatch of the silver, but it looks exactly like the gold, except silver. The effect is the same.

Swatch of Burgundy Magnetix

And here’s a swatch of the burgundy.

The instructions say to hold the magnet over the nail for 10 seconds…it doesn’t do much to be honest, and the sales girl told me to hold it on for 20 to see any decent results. 20 seconds worked much better.

I have mixed feelings about this polish. It’s kinda fun, but it takes FOREVER to dry, and FOREVER to get the effects to come out correctly. You have to take your time, be very slow and VERY careful. I ended up holding the magnet and my nail up to my eye to be triple sure I wasn’t accidentally pressing the magnet to the nail. I had to re-do almost every nail on my right hand until I started eyeing it.

There’s a little lip on the magnet you use to balance on your finger just below your nail. I find if you bend your nail, and press the little lip firmly onto your finger, you’re less likely to hit the drying polish with the magnet…Yea I can’t hold the magnet and take a picture at the same time…just trust me when I say use a firm press over the lip part ONLY.

Also, I found if you leave the magnetic cap on the nail polish bottle rather then removing it, you’ll have more control over the magnet…of course this means you’re going to have to have 2 bottles of polish…unless you want to keep opening and closing the same bottle.

My mother says her polish started chipping the next day, and she wasn’t at all satisfied with it. She said it was hard to use (kinda true), and a bigger pain then it was worth.

If you are going to try out the Magnetic polishes, I highly suggest using a top coat and a base coat. I’ve had mine on about 6 days now, and my chipping is very minor with Seche Vete (top and base). Only the tips of my thumbs are showing any wear.

So in closing, they’re not -terrible-. They’re…okay. If you have the time to sit around and play with the magnet, then it’s worth it. Also, like I said the drying time on these is rather long, since you do have to really glop the polish on. The gold polish is pretty on it’s own, so it’s not a complete loss to me.

I think I’m going to try uses these over a base color, just to see what happens. Hmm.

I had a pretty great weekend…and I needed one. It was one of those weekends that was all about me…mostly. I got so much running around done!!

My first two stops of the day were dull. I got my E-Check (emissions check for those of you not from our area, means you get your car checked for harmful to the environment emissions.) and I got my plates for my new van. I intended to get NADEAU as my plates, but then if discovered that because my birthday is at the end of May, I’m going to have to pay for new tags again in a little over 2 months. If I got custom plates now, that’d be 88 dollars now, then another 88 in May….yea I can wait 2 months thanks!

Next I stopped at CVS. I needed a pen to sign a pick up slip for the post office, and one of my students (Hilary) had told me that CVS is carrying the magnetic nail polish for like 6.50…Well…not the CVS near me, they hadn’t gotten them in yet. I did however pick up that pen…and the new Physicians Formula PH Matchmaker!

I was so excited to try this, I couldn’t wait! So I took a few pictures in the car of it and then popped it open and tried it on!

PHmatchmaker

Here’s the package. It says that it uses your body’s temp and the light around you to match your lips and create the perfect color for your complexion. Nifty!

It has a mirror!

So yes, it has a mirror on the side…which is pretty awesome. It ALSO has a little button on the top of the applicator, that when pushed lights up! How awesome for quick applications in dark cars, clubs, restaurants, any place with bad lighting! I approve!

I was a little worried about this product to tell you the truth. Any time I’ve used a product that claims to work with your body’s PH (like the “mood” lipstick circa 1990 and making a reappearance.) it would turn out this hideous neon pink color. Not this!! I was very impressed with the gentle pink-mauve color that came out. (You can see it in the mirror!)

The two things I did notice with this… 1. It’s a very sticky gloss. VERY sticky. My hair kept getting stuck to my lips. I’d avoid wearing this during windy days. 2. It can become a little grainy, but when you smoosh your lips around to re-spread the gloss it goes away.

So that being done with…I went to the post office and bank. Then to McDonald’s and got a caramel frappe…and brain freeze. It was WORTH it.

Returned a pair of boots…and then headed off to get my hair done.

Awesome new hair...yes there's aqua in it.

I love Studio Sonata at Parmatown Mall. I really can’t tell you enough how great they are.

I walked in, and with no appointment was seen with in 10 minutes! They were super busy too, so I was really surprised I wasn’t asked to come back an hour later! Yay!

Every time I go there, I’ve had a different stylist, and every time they are capable and do exactly as I asked. My hair is naturally wavy with some random curls in it, it can be hard to style properly, and harder to get the length I want. I’ve never had them cut it too short, ever. They’re so professional and wonderful, and they also have a referral program. If you bring a friend in, you get money off of your style. (Last time I got 10 dollars off!)

So while I was checking out, I noticed they had some China Glaze and OPI polishes on sale!! 50% off!! I was quite torn…they had Icka-body from China Glaze’s Halloween collection, and Warm-n-Fazzy from the OPI Muppets collection. Oh what to do, they’re very close in color and glitter…I picked Warm-n-Fazzy.

Warm-n-Fazzy OPI and Cotton Candy Scent Claires.

After I was done at the Salon, I decided to go to Claire’s and I was about to get my ears pierced but chickened out. I’m lame. But I did find some of the Cotton Candy Scented Polish!! It was teal…and 2.50. I bought it! It really does smell like cotton candy when it’s completely dry! The down side (Maybe?) Is the little scent grains come to the surface when it’s dried, and creates a rough texture to the nail. You can actually see them, they’re a strange beige color. I haven’t decided if I like the effect or not. Textured nails seem to be very on-trend right now after all.

Also at Claire’s…I found those Magnetic Nail Polishes!!!!

Magnetix by Claire's

I bought four colors (One not shown). Green, Gold, Silver, and Burgundy. The Burgundy one is with my mother, so I don’t have the bottle picture. Rest assured, the bottle is the same as these three. I think I’ll do a full review on these apart from this blog post..so keep an eye out for that!

Next…I went and for the very first time got my eyebrows threaded.

I went to Beautiful Brows, right next to Claire’s. For 10 dollars I got my brows threaded. It was quick, and only slightly-toe-twitching-painful. I think I was in the chair under 1 minute.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this place. It was completely empty when I walked in, and the girl behind the counter seemed like she didn’t want to be bothered with me. I was really nice to her too, and even complimented her job, my brows really did look nice…well…pretty nice…I noticed after I got into better light and a closer mirror that while they were very nicely shaped, she hadn’t gotten all the brow hair. I still had a few rogue brow hairs which I took care of myself.

My brows were only red for a few minutes, but they did bleed a little more then when I tweeze.

I did a few more uninteresting things at the mall and Wal-Mart, got myself an extra key to my van made, then had lunch at the Chinese buffet and finished choreographing my student’s Qaina piece (Which btw is AMAZING.)

After that, I picked up lunch for my hubs, and headed over to the Whitey’s Arm and Navy shop to get myself a new messenger bag. I now own a Paratrooper bag, which I love more then my girly purses. I think I’m going to single handedly try and bring the military look back into style. My old purse just wasn’t doing it for me, it didn’t have enough room and wasn’t working for everything else in life….and I don’t have a pic of this. Sad.

And then I saw the commercial, and I was a little more excited about it…That being said, I decided I needed to try it.

So the Illegal Length Mascara’s claim to fame is that it adds 4mm to your lashes.

Hm.

It also claims “Instant Lash Extensions, No Flakes”.

Kay. No flakes are a bonus…I hate when my mascara flakes.

So the brush says it’s suppose to coat all your lashes, no flaking, no breaking. I liked the brush.

I picked up 931 Fiber Black…and this is a “Washable” Mascara…I’m going to assume that means it’s not waterproof…which I’ll figure out at the end of this blog.

My very first impression is…I like it. I’m not sure it’s the HUGE difference in length it claims, but I do like the way it goes on easily, and coats every single lash with out much effort. I also kinda dug how it separated the lashes well, and didn’t make them look like fluffy bushes, but rather natural, long, and dark.

Many of the mascaras I own, you really have to work it in there. This one, not so much. I just did a single coat on each side from the bottom, and got a very nice effect.

Natural lashes

Lashes w/ Illegal Length

I put this on around 9am, and continued to wear it through the entire day.

Around about 4pm I did notice flaking…quite of bit of it had settled under my eyes. No smearing, just flakes. Still…what happened to no flaking? I also noticed I had a headache most of the day starting about an hour after I put the mascara on.

After the flaking episode, I didn’t seem to have any more issues…or any more mascara left on…which I didn’t notice until the evening when I went to clean my face and check out that “Washable” part. I started with plain water and wiped it across my eyes. Nothing came off. Ok…maybe I needed makeup remover. So I tried my go to Clinique Take Off the Day remover…Nothing. What the hell? I took my hand mirror, and then realized there was NO MASCARA on my lashes. Not a bit. My lashes are naturally a very dark brown, but still, they were not black, not even a lick. All the mascara had come off at some point in time during the 11 hours I had tried it for.

I’m very disappointed in this mascara. It’s got no staying power (Since it had started flaking before 4), nor does it really seem to add any worth while length to my lashes (Any length it did add was in the legal limits)…AND it quite possibly could have been the cause of my headache!

Maybelline’s been hitting home runs lately, so I’m just kinda…bleh about this. I’ll be returning it to Ulta.

I went to Ulta…it was sort of my consolation prize for a crappy weekend of broken plans. ;_; I had wanted to go out, get my hair cut, and get some other running around done, but mother nature decided I needed to stay home. Thanks for the snow.

So to make myself feel better, I went to Ulta, which is right next to a store called 5 Below, where everything is under 5 dollars.

I didn’t go into Ulta expecting to buy much of anything, I like to check out their clearance section for deals on nail polishes….I very nearly bought one of the OPI PotC polishes: Of Stranger Tides, but decided against it at the last moment.

I did however go poking about around the salon, where the nail polish displays are…(I was hoping to squeeze in that hair cut, but when I checked my phone I only had 20min. ;_; ) And I found the display for the Nicki Minaj OPI collection. I was actually pretty shocked. Either Ulta got in a ton of the polishes, or they just weren’t that popular. Either way, I snagged Save Me, which is a bar-glitter polish. I’m kinda a fan. It’s really unique, and I most definitely don’t have another bar glitter polish!

Save Me: Photo from Teen Vogue

I like the texture, it’s not think and it coated my nail wheel pretty well. I’ve yet to try it on my own nails yet. 2 coats seemed to do the trick. I forgot to grab this polish to take pics of it…I fail as a blogger. I did however remember my color wheel…It’s the one next to the blank nail.

Save Me Swatched

I also picked up (because I had coupons!) another Maybelline Color Tattoo in Edgy Emerald (which I’m sorry, I feel looks more teal them emerald…) and the new Illegal Length mascara…which I’m in the process of wearing and trying out, and will do a review on soon.

Illegal Length Mascara and Color Tattoo

My reaction to the Edgy Emerald was much like my reaction to Pomegranate Punk…and although the sales girl insists they’re “Highly Pigmented” I think we have a different idea of what a highly pigmented shadow is. I’ll keep wearing mine like a paint pot, thanks!

Edgy Emerald swatched no base

I still had a little time to kill after finishing up at Ulta, so I went next door to 5 Below to see if they had any more of those awesome toeless socks I like to use for dance. They didn’t. But they did have some other cute socks, which I picked up (one of which has a ninja on it…) and since the make-up isle wasn’t packed, I decided to check that out.

They have a rather impressive collection of wet n wild, none of which I was all that interested in. They also sell a few of the different Profusion Pallets, which I do like well enough, but lets face it. I like my BH Cosmetics 120 much more.

And then I turned around and they had their nail polish display actually all set up! Last time I was in, everything was in bags and it was impossible to look at anything.

I didn’t really see anything I wanted. All their polishes are $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00. I had nearly given up when I rounded the display and found their shatter polishes and HOLY MOLY would you look at this!! I found an awesome shatter and an amazing glitter!!

Teal Scales

The shatter is a dark DARK teal color with glitter in it! LOVE IT. The brand is called Funky Fingers- AX10 Teal Scales. I bought it, and was VERY happily surprised at the the crackle effect it gives! It shatters really well, doesn’t suck up the color underneath, and it sparkles all pretty!! I really adore this color!!

Tinsel Town

The other Funky Fingers color I picked up is the lovely green glitter!! It sparkles so pretty!! 5129 Tinsel Town….the name makes me think maybe it was a X-Mas polish? I really don’t care. The polish is a green jelly base with green, iridescent, and silver fine fine glitter bits in it. It’s just LOVELY. 2 coats and it’s quite opaque. Color is amazingly true to the bottle!

For the price, this polish is such a win!

Hue and Resolution

I also found (very cheap) at 5 below the discontinued line of Sally Hansen HD polish. It’s supposed to be a High Definition holographic polish. It came out around the same time the new Tron movie did. China Glaze released a line of HD polishes at the same time, and I kinda like their’s better to be honest. I don’t really get the holographic effect from this. You’re supposed to get a flash of rainbow in the light.

I picked up 12-Hue (Yellow) and 13-Resolution (Green)

With Hue, you sort of get this blue-ish flash in the bottle, but not so much once it’s on the nails. I don’t see any color flash with Resolution at all. Both have very fine pixel-like glitter to them, which does make them pretty but I feel they’re really kinda lacking that all around Holographic effect.

When I got home Monday, there was a package waiting for me…Which was odd…because I didn’t order anything!! Turns out it was from my awesome cousin Brigitte and her Hubby…and their fricken adorable baby.

Besides a bunch of great things, Brigitte sent me some new nail polishes!

Mint Sorbet and Lacey Lilac

Sally Hanson X-Treme Wear in 270-Lacey Lilac and 340-Mint Sorbet. Both colors very appropriate for Spring and all the respective Spring holidays! I like the X-Treme wear line, they go on very smooth and thick. 1 coat will do you, sometimes two depending on the streaking of the color. (like yellows, they tend to streak.)

She also sent me Pink Gel Coat by Perfect Formula. I’ve never heard of this brand before, so I’m curious to try it out. The box says…

“Creates a sheer pink protein rich coating which instantly strengthens, seals, and protects natural nails so they can grow long and strong.”

Pink Gel Coat

So apparently I use this under my base coat, and remove it once a week. Okay. I’m game! I’ll be doing a review on this product soon. I just cut down my nails last night, so as soon as my current manicure chips, I’ll be adding this to my routine!

That’s all I got for right now! Thanks for reading!

PS: Manicure is Did I Dye It Too Blonde by Spoild under Teal Scales Shatter/Crackle by Funky Fingers…Just in case you were wondering what my insane nail combo was.

I know many beauty bloggers who own this pallet under one name or another…BH Cosmetics, Costal Sense, Mac120…although be warned. Mac does NOT make a 120 pallet for general sale, and any auction offering one is a knock off (If it’s from China, it’s most def a knock off!)*.

*A little side note. I called Mac awhile ago, both of the stores local to me (Southland Mall, Macy’s and Crocker Park in Westlake). I got mixed answers. The first place said that Mac doesn’t make the 120 pallet at all, and the ones on ebay are fakes. The second said that Mac may make a 120 pallet, but it’s only available from their pro shops if they do. Also, Mac eyeshadow is not cheap, and a 120 pallet from Mac would run upwards of 1400 dollars when you consider 1 pan of Mac shadow is 12 dollars. A custom 15 color pallet is 188.50. So yea, if it looks too damn good to be true, odds are it is.

So anywho, I’ve been lusting after this pallet for some time, and I’ve been afraid to order one off ebay. I had seen many people unhappy with their orders, mostly because the color pay off was poor, or the shadows crushed in shipping.

They were recommended by a beauty vlogger I follow, and I decided to check them out. She seemed very happy with her purchase, and the price on the site was decent. Also, when I ordered they were giving away free black gel eyeliner, so I decided to place my order and try the free product! I like free!! I also ordered a red (Yes RED!) gel eyeliner!

It took about a week to get to me, and the box was stuffed with paper and paper honey-comb. Everything arrived almost completely intact…I was a little miffed. When I opened my pallet, one of the yellow eye shadows popped out of it. It’s completely fine, just seems like the glue gave on it, which could have been because of the cold? I dunno, it’s really not a huge deal, I plan to just glue it back in.

Here it is! The BH Cosmetics Pallet First Edition.

I chose the first edition over the others because it had mostly matte shadows with a few shimmers…I also chose it because it had 3 different Reds. And real RED eyeshadow is like impossible to find. (Mauve, Burgundy, Blush, no RED!)

There are three other 120 pallets available currently, but this is by far my favorite. Not only does it have the bold red, but the color gradient is more uniform. The other pallets seem sort of random to me.

Here are some of the basic colors, no base. To do these swatches, I pressed my finger onto the shadow, then smeared it across my hand. There was NO RUBBING to pick up the pigments. Yellow, Orange, Lavender, Red, Blue, Teal. The color pay off impressed me with such little effort involved. I can’t wait to actually try these with a proper base!!

This is the color pay off just pressing my fingers gently onto the shadows. Very impressive!!

Over all, I’m extremely pleased with this pallet!! It’ll help cut down on the clutter when I travel to gigs, and when I do other people’s makeup.

Also in my order…

Here are the two gel eyeliners. Burn (red) and Onyx(black).

Onyx was my free with order gift.

Swatches of both, no flash. Every time I used a flash the glare was too much. Unfortunately, Burn looks more orange in this picture. It’s RED. RED RED. But the pigment and the spreading ability of these liners is wonderful. I did however notice they can be a little on the waxy side, so keep that in mind. I don’t consider that a bad thing with my oily eyelid issue.

The site claims they can double as an eyeshadow, which I can see…but I would use them as a color base if anything, like the Maybaleen Color Tattoo or Mac Paint Pots.

I really REALLY like these, and can’t wait to use the red one at Qaina!

I do plan to place an order from them again in the near future. I’ve got my eye on the blush and contour pallet, their lip glosses, as well as some of their brushes!

I like this company, ordering was smooth and easy. If you’re new to make up or just don’t have much and want to expand your collection these 120 pallets are well worth the investment. They also offer 88 pallets of the 120 is a little too much for you!

So for everyone who’s stuck through this blog…here’s a little something awesome!

If you’ve decided you want a pallet…or two…now would be the time to get it! As a thank you to their fans for 400,000 likes on Facebook, BH Cosmetics is offering an AMAZING deal! You can get their 88 Matte Tropical Pallet, 88 Cool Matte Pallet, and their Liquid Eye Liner for 20 dollars!! 176 eye shadows AND a liquid liner!! Holy!! I’m sort of sad I didn’t wait another week!! http://www.bhcosmetics.com/deal-for-day/